Coheed and Cambria, citing a desire to support local music, announced a contest today to pick a local opening act for each of the dates on its upcoming 16-city U.S. and Canadian tour.
The jaunt, which opens at The Rave in Milwaukee on Sunday, Oct. 10, is in support of "Year of the Black Rainbow," the band's fifth studio set, which debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart.
"When we first started touring, local bands were a very important part of the process," says the band's singer Claudio Sanchez, singer for the prog rockers.
"Almost every tour had local openers on each show, but now it's much more common to have a set national package of bands touring through all the cities. While that can be easier at times, it makes it tough on local bands, and local scenes haven't flourished like they once did. Hopefully this helps bring awareness to some good up and coming music."
To enter, go to Coheed and Cambria's Facebook event pages and post a link to your music as a comment on The Rave show. Then drum up support by urging friends and fans to "vote" by "liking" your link.
Coheed and Cambria will then select a winner from among the top three vote-getting bands in each market.
But, just so you know, Fang Island is opening all the shows (except Boise and Missoula) on the tour, including at The Rave. So, you'd be playing before them.
Tickets for the shows go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
